Topic: Welcome/Introduction Thread

Good to see you back KratosMD (or rather @LtSarge) hope you've been well in your time away from us! We certainly missed your passion around here

@JohnnyShoulder Oh really? I thought you guys had forgotten all about me.

But yeah, what a coincidence. I just decided to come back now because I've been writing a lot lately on Pure Xbox and that place just don't see as much activity as Push Square, so I was barely getting any replies there. I feel like it's kinda pointless to write that many posts if nobody is going to reply to them, you know? I'm already experiencing a huge difference now writing here, which is great! I've missed talking with so many passionate people.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Hey Foxy, good to see you again and yeah I've been doing well! I appreciate hearing that, my passion for gaming is still as strong as ever. How have you been then?

Pretty good @LtSarge ... Last few months have been rather exhausting though and haven't been gaming as much so I'm glad to be on my summer break at the moment before going back to work in a few weeks

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Ah sounds rough but at least you have some time to relax now! I hope you'll have a nice summer break.

@LtSarge Oh my goodness! Welcome back, my friend!

I just now am seeing this. I was reading your Resident Evil and other posts and just thinking “How have I not seen this person’s posts before? They clearly have a great passion for gaming.” And only now see you’re not someone new after all! So glad you’re doing well and still gaming.

We’ve seen a few regulars drift away this past year along with you like Arugula and KalofKrypton among others. So it’s nice to see you’re here since in today’s COVID world you never know what may have happened to people.

And it’s funny because like @colonelkilgore said we were jesting with him that he was actually you incognito since he showed up around the time you left and he has been burning through lots of games quickly like you tend to do. 😅

I have spent a little time over on the Xbox sister site from time to time when things get quiet here and it does seem a little less busy over there. The comment sections of the articles here have been quite busy — I remember when I first joined that a big article would rarely hit 100 comments and now it’s commonplace for them to go over that, even for a smaller article. I still engage with the comments but certainly roll my eyes at a lot of them. Overall they aren’t as toxic as they were there for a while though. I have disagreed with some and replied and only had obnoxious responses a couple times in the last year, but I have to be selective on who I reply to as some people just can’t be reasoned with.

Anyways, I’ll look forward to having your insight around again!

@Th3solution Thanks, it's great to see you again mate! I've actually been worried that I'll start talking with older members without reintroducing myself to you guys, lol. I guess if that ever happens I'll just write it at the end.

Sad to see that some have left but hopefully they'll return one day once the situation in the world has become better.

My impression of @colonelkilgore so far is that he seems to be even more passionate about gaming than I am. He's buying and playing games at a very fast rate, lol. It's really nice to see that though because like I mentioned before, I've really missed discussing games with passionate people.

I mean, Pure Xbox can get pretty busy in the articles but the forum is still a far cry from being an active place. That's kinda why I'm staying away from Push Square articles but hanging out at the forum, while on Pure Xbox I don't mind writing in the articles while sometimes checking out the forum. Both sites have aspects that complement each other in my case, which is great!

@LtSarge chatting games is something I don’t really get much of an opportunity to do irl, so more than happy to get deep into it here. Stumbled on the place in December and really glad that I did… I think being a member here may have increased my passion for gaming if anything.

Although I obviously never knew you previously, it’s good to have you back… this place only improves with the more regulars 👍

@colonelkilgore Has it really only been since December? 😳

@Thrillho yeah, don’t tell me I’m annoying you so much that it’s slowing down time 🤣

@LtSarge Hiya, it's good to see you again

@crimsontadpoles Hello, great to see you as well!

@LtSarge Good to have you back.

It seems like the break you took from here did you good.

And for the record, I think it's smart avoiding the article comment sections of these sites, considering how much drive-by trolling, childish anger, etc. you'll see on any given day.

@Ralizah Thanks, I appreciate hearing that. Yeah, it's starting to become the same over at Pure Xbox as well. I just dislike seeing so much negativity for no real reason. People take gaming too seriously sometimes, I just want everyone to play video games and have fun. I mean, that's the reason we play video games to begin with, you know?

@LtSarge I only visited Pure Xbox briefly when the current gen consoles came out just to see what was happening over at Team Green. I quickly got fed up of seeing the same few people continuously slagging off Sony, even when the article had nothing do them. I get that is gonna happen to some degree on a fan site focused solely on one console, but that seemed a bit overkill to me, and doesn't seem to that bad over here. Or maybe it does, and I'm just not seeing it as I'm not looking at every comments section.

Anyways, sorry for the rant! 😂

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah I know exactly who you're talking about and it's actually escalated quite a bit since last year. Like at first I could understand people's frustration since Xbox has been on a losing streak ever since 2013 with that whole "always online, DRM etc." fiasco and now it's looking up for the platform. But I think they're taking it a bit too far and I'm staying as far away as I can from those discussions now.

The forums are still nice though! @ralphdibny is managing that site's Game Club and he's done a great job of running it. We've played through a lot of great games this year and we're currently playing through A Plague Tale there, with Psychonauts 2 being the next game we'll be checking out.

@JohnnyShoulder You're gonna notice that more on Pure Xbox since it's a smaller community, and a few of the regulars are... unpleasant, IMO. I decided to stop posting there after a particularly ugly conversation about Nintendo fans in the comment section of one of the articles received almost no pushback from anyone there.

But I'm not gonna do this "[insert sister site] is toxic and isn't as nice and wholesome as [insert preferred sister site] is!" thing that people do on literally all three sites (Nintendo Life, Push Square, and Pure Xbox). The truth is, both NL and PS have some amazing posters and conversations in their respective forums that make them worth engaging in, and I'm sure PX probably has the same if you actually dig into the forum there, which I didn't really do.

@JohnnyShoulder I think I know the person (or possibly bot?) Could be the same person I was talking to @LtSarge about the other day. Not sure. I just avoid the threads they post in. I'm quite happy to do so to be honest.

I will say this though, and it's also to @Ralizah too. I don't find it worth giving pushback to those sorts of users. They have their opinion and if it's so maniacally obsessive and shill-like then they are probably not the sort of user that I would want to interact with anyway. They are entitled to hold their own opinions and act in that way and I'm entitled to ignore them completely.

I will say there is a cut off point though. These are fan sites and I will absolutely give time to people that are fans of a particular console over another. I think it's the context that counts. You can sort of tell the bots/trolls from the legitimate users based on how well formed their argument is for preferring one platform over another. It can still be as simple as one sentence such as "I prefer the games on such and such" but it's a far cry from "Xbox comes with a party hat and canapés so nerrrr Sony, stick that in your all digital system and smoke it!"

I won't engage with the former example on that particular topic as it just doesn't interest me (well at least, nothing more than a "fair enough" because it is fair enough!) but I would still absolutely love to talk to them about other stuff. Whereas the second example is a major red flag (obviously my example is a bit of an outrageous and possibly amusing take on what they can be like) and is probably not the sort of person I could find anything in common with.

The game club is chill though. I would probably say something if one of the members started posting stuff like that but absolutely nobody has done so in the time since I created the thread.

From a console agnostic perspective, I do see it happen on all 3 sites as well.

Edit: sorry I'm a bit tired, I didn't really explain why I thought it wasn't worth engaging those users. It's because you won't convince them, so why bother. You might as well try getting a brick to ride a bicycle. Also, who cares what they think? I couldn't see it making a difference to my life if a stranger truly believes that either Phil Spencer or Jim Ryan actually has their best interests at heart. They are business people who run a company that provides a service and/or product that we pay for. That's the end of the transaction. If the product is sub par then we stop paying. If it's above average then we may compliment. That's pretty much as far as it goes for me.

@Ralizah Yeah I noticed there was hardly any moderation. Maybe they don't feel the need to due to the community size? That would be a pretty poor excuse though.

@LtSarge @ralphdibny Good to know it is not just me! I'm sure it goes on across all forums, just seemed a bit more prevalent on PX when I was checking it out. There would be absolutely no point in trying to have civilised discussion as you'll end going round in circles. Glad the forums are a good place to post!

@ralphdibny Sure. And I see it happen on all three sites as well, particularly in the article comment sections. People are going to pick and choose their battles: for example, NL is pretty bad about attracting bigoted comments (usually from people who aren't forum regulars) any time they host an article talking about "diversity" or "LGBTQ+" topics, and I don't even bother arguing with people in those comment sections anymore. The same group of bigots is always going to crop up any time those articles are posted, and, since I have no reasonable expectation that I'm going to be able to change anyone's mind, I just choose not to engage with them.

With that said, if there's little to no pushback at all from regulars in a community toward toxic and/or fanboyish rhetoric, you risk allowing the people perpetuating that rhetoric to set the tone for any future discussion in that community, as the unfriendly atmosphere will make it where reasonable people leave and more unpleasant types gravitate toward it (to be clear, I'm speaking generally here). It can also lead to otherwise reasonable people internalizing toxic attitudes when they're constantly hearing it from people they otherwise agree with. It's a very, very easy thing to become a part of a tribe without even realizing it, which usually means sharing both common values and common enemies. It's one reason why I try to branch out a bit from more than just one type of community.

I do think people will have different thresholds for how much they're willing to tolerate, depending on how much investment they have in a community. It doesn't surprise me that people from here and/or NL would be scared off from some comments they've read on PX, just like I can easily imagine a PX regular venturing over here, seeing the anger in most articles where GamePass is mentioned, and deciding this website is unfriendly.